


Scissors and Snowflakes

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: F/M, being a dad, grump dad, luck is sorta there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9080581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Tick and Maria decorate the casino for the holidays.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my secret santa gift for Vilatile on tumblr (I'm not sure what their Ao3 is/if they have one, otherwise I'd gift it on here). I admittedly don't tend to write about these characters but they are precious angels.

When they are young, their mother asks them to write letters to Santa — every year, without fail. Even when they outgrow their belief in him, even when they grow to understand how tight money is, even when their tree is bare and their food is scarce, she puts on a smile and hands them a pen and paper and tells them that Santa needs to know what they want for Christmas.

The memory of her is soft and sweet; in the years to come Tick will learn that the world prefers Tack, but he will always recall that their mother loved them  _both_. 

 _Snip, snip, snip_. Scraps of paper drift to the floor like snowflakes.

Tack wants an abacus and a microscope, and a book with a title which, when torn in half, reads as  _The - Species_  on one side and  _Origin - of_  on the other. Tick thinks these sound like good, smart things to want for.

Tick is not good  _or_  smart, but he is good enough to dislike the thought of his brother being let down and smart enough to know that he  _will_ be. Their mother loves them, but she is a single mother and times are tough enough for families with  _two_  parents; Tick knows that she can’t afford the things that Tack deserves to have. 

He  _doesn’t_  know that Tack will cry when he sees his letter torn to shreds. When he’s done there is nothing to salvage, and in his mind this means it doesn’t exist anymore; this is for the best. If there is no list, there are no expectations — and if there are no expectations, there can’t be any  _disappointment_. Now it won’t matter  _what_  they get. 

Tack is a genius. No matter what he’s given, Tick is sure that he’ll make something good and smart out of it. No matter what Tick is given, he’ll make scraps out of it. The details don’t matter. 

Tack has high expectations, for himself and for the world, and even if he got his abacus and his microscope and his books he wouldn’t be  _happy_ , and Tick — Tick is happy enough if he has wrapping paper to tear through. 

* * *

 _Snip, snip, snip._  Pine needles drift to the floor, an artificial forest making its home in the Gandor family’s casino. Tick pauses to admire his work. The once ragged, wild branches trimmed to a perfect cone shape, brilliantly green, rejuvenated by a pair of rusty scissors. Edith had once told him he should become a florist; he thinks he should broaden his prospects and become a gardener.

“I slashed down another one, amigo! Where do you want it?”

The lithe woman heaves a Christmas tree over her shoulder as though it is light as a feather, and a certain young mafioso watches from his seat at the poker table and frowns deeply.

“Miss Maria.” He breathes through his nose, voice stiff with exasperation. “If you put one more tree in this room there will be no room for the customers.”

“C'mon, amigo! You won’t  _have_  any customers if you act like a killjoy!”

The building is nothing if not  _festive_ ; the scent of tobacco smoke, usually strong in the cloudy casino, faded by the scent of pine and peppermint. Tick and Maria attack the holiday season with the same fervour they attack everything, and the Gandor turf has never looked greener.

Luck Gandor has never looked redder.

“How many trees are there in this room right now?”

Maria pauses to count, a finger raising with every addition.  _Uno, dos, tres_ …

“Siete! Seven.”

Luck nods.

“Seven. Explain to me, then, please, how choosing to stop at seven Christmas trees would make us look like killjoys.”

“Because —”

Her explanation falls flat.

“Hmph. Fine. This is the last one,” She folds her arms over her chest. “But don’t blame me when people start asking where the holiday spirit is, gruñón.”

_Snip, snip, snip._

Maria lays the tree down across the poker table, turning her nose up at Luck. 

_Snip snip snip._

She plops herself down on the floor beside Tick, stretching out beneath the branches and studying Tick’s hard work. 

“Looking good, amigo — the tree, I mean.”

Tick closes his eyes and spreads his toothy grin wide, scissors snipping along happily with each word.

“ _Thaaaank_ you! Think Mister Luck has any decorations layin’ around?”

“Don’t think Mister Luck knows what decorations  _are_ , amigo.”

A  _cough_. Maria sees Luck’s glare out of the corner of her eye and promptly ignores it.

“We should make some!”

Tick tilts his head in question, but Maria is firing off an explanation before he can ask.

“We could make those… whatcha call ‘em — those paper things Mister Yaguruma showed us?”

“Origami?” Luck offers, tossing a card down on the table. Maria scrunches up her nose. 

“Origami, sí!”

“I’m not sure how suited the two of you are to that craft.”

“What does that mean?! Me and Tick —”

“Tick and I.”

“ _Me and Tick_  can do anything!”

“It  _means_  that your usual strategy of  _slashing_  isn’t of much use in folding paper cranes.”

“Then we’ll just slash ‘em into cranes instead!”

Maria seems satisfied with this solution, throwing her head back in triumph. She repeats the idea again and again and again — her excitement increasing exponentially with Luck’s exasperation.

“We’ll show that paper who’s boss —! Right, amigo?”

Maybe it’s just that she wants someone to be excited with her — and maybe it’s also that she’s notices the silence where Tick’s excitement usually  _is_. The upbeat rhythm of his scissors has slowed to a dirge, hands opening and closing methodically.

“I  _thiiiink_ —”

 _Shrieeek_. The drawn out cry of metal against metal punctuates his speech.

“I want to make them the right way. If Mister Luck says you don’t cut ‘em, theeeen.” He lifts his shoulders into a shrug, scissors dangling from his fingertips. “We should try that.” 

* * *

In three hours time, Maria has succeeded at making twenty odd crumpled up pieces of paper — and a grand total of zero cranes. Her latest attempt had looked _sorta like a duck who got its neck snapped_  according to Berga, who had dropped in on Luck’s request to ensure they hadn’t caused any property damage. Maria would prefer causing property damage any day, but Tick seems intent on actually following through with his word.

“You know, amigo, Murasamia could finish these up in a second!” she offers, for the fifth time in the past ten minutes. She  _wants_  to do a good job with this — but why can’t doing a good job mean doing what it’s in her nature to do? Tick doesn’t look up, but he smiles. 

“You can cut yours  _iiiif_  you want, Miss Maria,” he hums, holding his paper up to the light to study his most recent fold. 

“…  _humph_. It’s no fun if  _you_ don’t! What’s gotten into you?” Maria leans over the table to wave a hand in front of his face, lips pursed into a pout. “Have you gone loco? Let’s cut ‘em up!”

“Hmmmm.” He sets the half-finished crane down, an uncharacteristic stillness emerging for lack of paper or scissors to fiddle with. “ _Y’knooow_ , Tack was good at following instructions,  _aaand_ — putting stuff together. He would’ve been able to make these real easy. He’d probably think that I’m stupid for having so much trouble.”

On their last Christmas before their mother’s passing, Tack had been gifted a puzzle; when he’d put the finally piece down, Tick had smashed it apart. It had been an accident, for once, but he’d been assured he was an  _idiot_. It would seem that Tack was born to create and Tick was born to  _break_. He raises his head to see Maria furrowing her brow, and fortifies his smile as though to reassure her.

“Which is  _okaaay_. Thing is, I  _juuuust_ …” He tilts his head, searching for the words to explain. “I wanted to see if I  _could_.”

“If you could  _what_ , amigo?”

Maria rests her elbows on the tabletop, frowning now — confusion contorting her features. 

“If I could make something real.”

She’s silent, just for a few seconds, processing this sentiment to the best of her ability, then her eyes travel to the pair of scissors sitting on the table beside her pile of crumpled paper cranes. 

“Who says you can’t do that by cutting stuff up?!” She grabs the scissors in one sweeping motion, so quickly that by the time Tick reacts — a frantic attempt to snatch them back — she is already shoving them into his hand. Her hand lingers there even after his fingers have closed over the scissors, a touch of warmth to accompany the cold metal. 

“You’re  _you_ , so if you’re gonna make something you’ve gotta do it  _your_  way!”

She is grinning again, eyes bright with enthusiasm, and Tick cannot ignore the call to respond in kind. 

“ _Alriiiight._ ” He nods, laying his other hand over hers. “How do I do that, Miss Maria?”

“There are all kinds of ways, amigo! Like… like — !”

* * *

The casino is beginning to resemble a winter wonderland out of some storybook. Atop the bed of pine needles is a scattering of white triangular scraps, floating to the ground like snow as Tick snips away with small, fast cuts. He pauses to admire his work, holding the paper up to the light to study the pattern he’s cut out. 

“What d’you think you’d look like if you were a snowflake, Miss Maria?” He hooks the ornament onto one of the branches and smiles. Across from him, Maria drops her borrowed scissors to dig into her pile of paper snowflakes. 

“This one!” she exclaims, holding out her choice up for Tick to see. 

Tick squints at the snowflake, then nods. 

“It’s pointy.” He reaches out to poke one of the edges. 

“Exactly, amigo! Just like Murasamia and Kochite!” She beams, and Tick’s smile brightens; happy to be understood and happy to understand. 

Luck watches them dance between their now  _eight_  Christmas trees, pinning their paper snowflakes up wherever they can, and tries his best not to lose his temper.

“How many of these have you made, exactly?” he asks slowly, brushing one of them off the edge of the poker table. He decides that it would be  _unnecessary_  to ask why they gave up on the origami idea; the dedication with which they’ve chopped up every sheet of paper they’d been given speaks for itself. 

“I stopped counting after two hundred, amigo,” laughs Maria. 

“ _Sorryyy_ , I’m no good with numbers, Mister Luck.”

“Two —?! I… Just. Keep them away from the tables.” He fights to keep his voice levelled. “We run a serious business here.”

Tick and Maria do not seem to agree; as though eager to compromise the seriousness of the Gandor family business, they set to work lining every tree with their crafts, until the green of the pine cannot be seen for the white of the snowflakes — and when they run out of branches they set to work decorating each other. Maria fastens one onto the top button of his shirt, and Tick makes a crown of them to place on her head. 

“It suits you, Miss Maria!” The ring of snowflakes turns the flower in her hair into the first sign of spring, and this is  _Maria_ ; even the harsh north eastern winter can’t freeze her spirit, but it can complement it well. 

“Gracias, amigo!” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles brightly enough that it convinces Tick he’s made something  _worth_  making — maybe he was born to break, and cut, and tear away at everything he touches, but that smile is something  _real_. 

* * *

The following day, the casino is bustling. Maria gets all of her ‘ _I told you so’_ s out in one run-on sentence spanning the length of a Shakespearean monologue:  _I told you so I told you so I told you so I told you —_ stopping only when Luck admits, begrudgingly, that  _yes_ , it would seem their customers appreciate the festivity (and  _no_ , this does not mean it isn’t  _over the top_ , he adds, but Maria is deaf to this). 

Kate plays music for the dancers — it had been decided that a special occasion called for higher quality than scratchy records. Maria,  _kindly_  reminded to get back to work guarding said dancers, saunters over and props her elbows up on the piano. 

“Sounds great, amiga!”

Kate smiles up at her, fingers dancing between the keys. 

“You know what would make it even  _better_?”

It doesn’t take much convincing for her to agree to play  _Jingle Bells_  next. 

Tick sits in his usual seat, scissors  _snicking_  along rhythmically. Maria smiles over at him, and he smiles back. When she thinks Luck isn’t watching, she thanks Kate and slips away. 

“Feliz navidad, Mister Tick!”

She takes a seat across from Tick. 

“You’re  _stiiiill_ wearing the snowflakes,” he observes, gesturing with his scissors. Maria touches her head and beams. 

“’Course I am! You said it suited me, amigo!”

He nods,  _snipping_  pausing for a beat. “It’s cute.”

Maria has been called  _cute_  many times before, but the fact that it is not a surprise does not make it any less  _pleasant_. She opens her mouth to say  _thank you_ , but then remembers something more important and digs into her pocket to find it. 

“Here, amigo!”

Tick blinks at the object extended to him: a pair of scissors speckled with white paint.

“I painted snowflakes on them, see!”

He sets down one pair of scissors in order to accept the gift. He sees it now, the snowflakes. He turns them over in his hand, admiring the adornment; shoddy painting, objectively, but perfect in sentiment. 

“That way you can be festive even when you’re working!”

Tick has never wanted for much. He is happy enough if he has wrapping paper to tear through, and anything he is given he will just break — but she has thought to give him something to  _do_ the breaking, and this he can be grateful for. 

“Thaaaank you, Miss Maria! I’ll use them next time Mister Luck brings someone in for me!”

The festivities continue; Kate plays on, the dancers put on their show, the gamblers place their bets, and Tick and Maria exchange smiles like gifts at every opportunity. 


End file.
